Broken Mirror - Shards
by Mess
Summary: The direct sequal to Broken Mirror - Shatter. Three months after after the death of Edea, new factions have arisen among the children of the Gardens. For revenge, survival, or rebirth... a new war is on the horizon.
1. in wolf's clothing

**Broken Mirror**   
Act Two - shards   
i - in wolf's clothing   


"Oh, I get it. You don't feel anything at all. You're the type of guy that two weeks from now, you'll be stopped at a traffic light and all this will hit you and when it hits, it'll hit hard. It'll hit you so hard that your heart will burst into a hundred pieces."

"He who loses control, loses!"

-Homicide: Life on the Streets   
  


***   


It smelled like rain.

It didn't often smell like rain anymore. His faintly aquiline nose was used by now to brine and human flesh flavored with a hint of napalm. So accustomed, in fact, that it plagued his senses like Richard the Leonhart back from the Crusades in some cheap Robin Hood parable. The faithful outlaw called out from his triumphant guerilla was by the mere hint of a royal decree.

Rain was important. No reason why. Just was. Rain was important like the wind and the sun and the earth below him - and rain was where he'd decided to run from the world like water.

Said rain was currently washing a fortnight's accumulated salt and mud and grime off of the side of the Fallen Garden. SIlver rivulets might have made a pretty site, but for the clot of grey-black clouds above. To love such weather would be foolish. But to appreciate the camouflage of mist and waves and sheets of noise was not. Though to say exactly who or what it was camouflaging, and to what purpose, would not be conducive to the young man's pride.

When it smelled like rain it felt like rain too. A nurturing sensory deprivation of air and water. It was a clammy sort of rebirth - like spring, but without the annoyance of melting banks of snow or the random stenches of animal and vegetable. And the hairs on the back of your arms felt that little bit more...

Whatever.

"Sir, incoming transmission from Esthar airspace. You want I should patch it through?" the comm. system crackled, disturbing one very tired young man's repose. That was another thing about rain - it had a tendency to lull you to sleep. The one-and-only lullaby fit for a child of empty seas.

There was alot of static, drowning out the water. Raijin and his crew must have been at the wiring again. .... Damn.

"I'll take it," Squall verbally nodded, rubbing a half-sleep out of his eyes. Clear patched drizzled incessantly over his windows, which only managed to make the small office look even more grey. But he honestly didn't envy Fujin Martine's - not with the kind of access he had to the central staging area.

The commander was practical like that, though his sense did not extend to keeping any semblance of regular hours. Responsibility has a way of defying logical thought processes sometimes. Like symbols and talismans and superstitions of the ilk of Martine's room.

And it kind of meant something to her, though he honestly couldn't say what. It was.. important. Symbolically, or whatever. He didn't get the room, but he did get the gesture. And if he'd bothered to think about it (which he didn't) that was probably why he felt so comfortable working with her at all, when it was so obviously against his (would-be) nature. There were very few people in this world that Squall Leonhart would consider getting, and even few that he actually might understand. On some level or another.

The pads of calloused fingers ran over a stirling-silver lion's head as the screen on his desk blinked to life, drawing his attention away from the roiling clouds outside.

"Leonhart," one word was all it took. If you were bothering to call Squall Leonhart, then you were in possession of the very privileged information that he was, indeed, alive. Or risen from the dead - whichever one preferred. And if you could be trusted (at at the very least begrudgingly granted) with that fact, then you were probably of sufficient proximity to the Garden command to know that the day Squall bothered with conventional manners would be the day he died. So if you dropped the respectful sir, or the customary prefix, he wouldn't mind. Probably wouldn't even notice.

"We need to talk."

Usually.

"What do you want?"

At least he hadn't used Loire.

What the hell? He'd had this man screened out. There was a _reason_ they had a comm officer. Wasn't Fujin around to deal with this? Why wasn't Fujin around to deal with this? Of all the times for Fujin to be off in one of her non-dependable moody periods (which was rare enough that few people had anything to complain about, and often enough to annoy Squall for reasons that he didn't care to name) this was not it.

Not that he wasn't able to deal with it, with the white noise of rain in the background. Not at all.

His Impassive Neutral voice was going quite well, actually.

"Look... I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry about everything even though it's useless and stupid and stuff. And if there was a way I could make it up to you. But I can't," the green eyes in the screen looked.... wide. And just like Squall's own. So he stopped looking at them, because he found the rain more interesting anyways. Eyes never change. Windows on the soul? In what universe? "And we don't have time for this."

Business before pleasure. Good. There was no pleasure to be had here. Loire would do well to remember that. He seemed inordinately attached to unprofessional values of life in the moment that undermined his credibility better than any genetic remnant or accidental heroism.

"I'm listening," Leonhart stared out the window with unblinking cats eyes, as impassivity reared its ugly head.

And rain trailed down the plexiglass to meet at passive junctions.

"Squall.. erm, Commander Leonhart... we have a problem."

We?

He did not often use the word. Inclusiveness implies culpability, and culpability is not an asset. Lesson #5, Negotiation Tactics 3-20 (Advanced SeeD Training Stream).

"We?"

"Those of us not professionally kissing Seifer Almasy's ass," Leonhart did not bother to track the open gesture path of two faintly pixellated hands. Nor did he marvel at the backdrop - a miracle of modern science in trasparence and blue. Squall focused on the water - because its song was much more pleasant to the naked ear. Was he trying to make this funny? Whatever.

And then the silence came. And it was Good.

"Klaus Odine went missing a week ago," Lore continued - voice was smooth and baritone, like rocks polished at the bottom of a creekbed. The man had been an actor. This he knew. The soldier had seen the movie in his youth. It had poor production values, an an unimpressive historical perspective. "And there is _so_ no way he got out of out airspace without Neo-Galbadian help."

"And you want me to do _what_ about this?" Funny, how he could keep his face so still while the president raced through contortions unknown. Strange, how it took so little effort that the lion barely thought of it, barely _acknowledged_ it, as the numbness draped over him - painkiller of an old blanket.

"I'm just.. letting you know, m'kay?" Was Loire skittish, now? Did he feel remorse, or indifference, or a practiced relief? He was an actor. And Leonhart couldn't tell in any case. He_ refused _to look at that man. He refused to rip his gaze from the window. The solder took no marching orders now. "We'll pay you for him back. He's needed for the Space Program."

The sound grazed past the lion's one pierced ear, then lost itself in clammy sanctuary. With their ventilation problems, it was a miracle the air was moving at all.

"Why should I believe you?"

"Excuse me?" a pencil-thin black brow arched. Loire's face was flushed.. expressive and inappropriate.

An actor. Was this an act? The solder was no patron of the theater - sentimentalist trash.

Whatever, Loire_._

"Why should I believe you? Why should I care enough to trust that information? You people put us here - so let us do our jobs."

Lesson #12 - Trust is secondary. Mission is primary. In the absence of a mission or a designated partnership, there will be no trust. The enemy will take advantage of you. They'll feed you false information over your own radio.

And then they'll leave you so far. So far behind. So far behind in what? What does it matter? Any way you put it you still lose the race.

"So what.. _I'm_ your destiny now?" Loire was upset. Whatever. " Our whole freaking generation are the fates? Is that it? Kid, for Hyne's sake... what, do you want history to _reset_ just for you? Stop blaming me for you being out there... we've had this conversation before. Yes, I feel really really sorry for leaving you behind and it was the biggest mistake I've ever made, okay?"

_Spare me emptiness._

Wolflike, Squall ignored his father studiously, preferring to stare off into the depthless dove-grey sky.

"But where the hell do you get off dumping your problems on us? If you don't take out Almasy soon, kid, we're all gonna be in some extremely deep shit. And despite the fact that you don't seem to care and stuff - I'm sure those kids with you do! Stop living in the past, kid.. look, I hate having to say this. You have _no_ idea how much I have having to say this, because it prolly means you'll never speak to me again and that's so the last thing I wanted. You have to believe me - it's the last thing I ever wanted. But blaming us ain't gonna help anything."

Squall bothered to look at the President for the first time, then, eyes half-lidded and impassive. Father - his father was upset. Very. His father was upset and sincere and a thousand other things that perhaps only a skilled actor could have communicated to one Commander Leonhart. ".. whatever."

Guillotine, his words where. Cut the ties that bind - they'll fray anyways.

"Always wanting to fight against the tide.. but somehow, the whole damn world seems to want to thrust itself into your hands. You're your father's son," the man smiled wryly, shaking an absurd amount of coal-black hair from his vision. He was smiling? This couldn't' be. An act. An act. An act. Bravo, President Loire. " Believe it or not, I'm almost kinda proud of you. And you're gonna have to do what you have to do some day, 'cause you're the only one who can."

No time for encores today. It was raining. Rain was important. Not because it caused his leather jacket to stick ever-so slightly to his skin, or because it threw down inner peace from the heavens. He remembered now. The tempest would interfere with Neo-Galbadian tracking equipment, and allow them to move into a more secure position.

"I have other buisness to conduct."

_Get off the stage. Actor. Don't smile at me through the telescreen like you did when you saved Sorceress Aela from the big bad dragon and you grinned onto film your happiness at being her Knight. I've seen that smile before._

".. kay then. Don't say I didn't warn ya.."

"Goodbye."

"Good luck."

On two sides of the world bathed in two Hyne-sent deluges, two uncomfortably identical mouths breathed a sigh. And then moved on with their day.   


***

On the bridge of the Fallen Garden, the shadows had melted into the light.

No, not by magic. Though one of the goddamn sentimental pansies that trussed their dorm room up with unicorns and paper flowers might think so. This was nothing but the fuzzy, elastic, imprecise light of rain.

Screw it.

With a stomp, and a pace, and a dignified huff, the fluorescent lights mercilessly dispatched any tendril of atmosphere that might have been brewing in the midsize observation chamber. Which was of course the point.

The bridge of the former Galbadia Garden had two captain's seats, and that was good. One for Cid and one for Edea, Fujin supposed, though when her goddamn majesty was supposed to have been making use of these she'd never know (her role in this little freakshow was a bit of a mystery.. what the hell kind of moron would bother even contemplating screwing Cid Kramer when they had _Seifer Almasy_ of all people!? ). It also - as of exactly two months, six days, fifteen hours and twenty-two minutes ago - had a coffee machine. Not that frothy airy-fairy cappuccino crap - _real_ coffee. The kind that took a bite out of your tongue and kept you awake (and oh-so addictively alert) late into the night.

This too was a good thing. A Fujin without her morning, afternoon, evening, or snacktime coffee was an unhappy Fujin indeed. And it was a bit of an unwritten rule in the Garden that if Commander Asher wasn't happy, _nobody_ was happy.

So despite the oddity of its presence among sleek pretty-little next-generation consoles and sleek pretty-little next-generation soldiers, the coffee machine stayed. On a clammy day like this, it was all she could do to keep from clutching at the sweet warmth of her styrofoam cup for dear warming life. The light was fuzzy, the world was grey, she was bored, and if she didn't' find something to think about soon there'd be hell to pay.

Speaking of which, in came Squall. A Squall who looked like hell. That he got even less sleep than she was kind of disturbing, and in a way even offensive, since Asher prided herself on an unhealthy work ethic.

Gulp. Coffee. Yum. Third cup this morning.

"What happened?" Fujin bothered to disengage her mouth from the cheap disposable cup. Dammit, they needed more utensils and tableware. Why couldn't army caravans ever carry anything useful, instead of the hull full of cannibalized parts they were currently hauling around in the vain hope of pawning off some black market scrap metal?

This was her was of asking how his day was. Since he looked like hell, and _actually_ asking how his day was would have been both unprofessional and really bloody wussy.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Yeah. Right.

Random note to self: never again attempt to operate on black market with large flying fortress of destruction. They needed more money. More money to by coffee. Good, wholesome coffee that keeps people awake and happy and not in some damn self-destructive Squall mood.

"What happened?"

Fujin did not humor people, so she just sat down while he stood stiff as a board.

".....Loire."

Well. Well, well. The obvious returns.

"I ... see."

And she was suppose to help this _how_? Stupid Squall. There had to be a tactical report around here somewhere.. or at least Raijin to kick. Stupid Raijin. Ever since he started working with the kids he was all off on this pansy 'kids shouldn't' see violence, ya know? Ya gotta set an example as their commander ' kick. Though she'd never admit it, this was not good for Fujin's stress level.

"Just forget about it."

Neither, for that matter, was trying to get a strait answer out of the now-sitting fetish-shop posterboy. Sometimes, talking to Squall was like pulling teeth. Your _own _teeth.

"If you say so."

If he wanted to be left alone, his problem. She had the coffee machine by her chair, and the proverbial stack of reports to fill out. Well, not actual reports. But someone had to keep track of how much money they were making, and Seifer (Fucking) Almasy had always made her do his taxes anyways.

"He says that Almasy has Odine."

"Odine?" Shit. That didn't sound right. " What the hell would he need _that_ psycho for?"

If Fujin knew Seifer (and Fujin _knew_ Seifer) he did nothing without a reason. Even if that reason involved psychotic, delusional ideals and hyper-romanticized dreams.

"That's what I'd like to know."

Squall did not look at Fujin. Fujin did not look at Squall. And the large, black flatbed screen they were staring at certainly wasn't about to look back to reveal any sort of divine character insight.

So the albino let her hand wander over to the scaldingly warm (it did _not_ hurt, dammit) pot and pour a lazy paper cup. Which was promptly transferred over.

"Here."

"Balamb roast?"

"Yeah."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

Seifer had loved coffee.

And misery loves company.   
  


***

At a third point in space, circling 'round the same point in time, two other men were sighing. But their world was neither rainswept nor wrought with conversational landmines, nor did they sink into a ritualistic silence, so that was alright.

The problem might have been a lack of proper atmosphere. Their particular abode was far from pleasant, or engineered to facilitate dinner parties, brilliance, or scientific progress. It was, in fact, pretty damn useless. Unless, of course, one wants straight answers.

"Fucking morons."

Beware of crooked answers. They get you tied to a chair in cramped little room in the Delling Citadel, complete with the charming smell of urine, spent gastric juices, and sweat. One unsanitary little deathtrap, where the corners were shadows and they spurned the sinister electric shock for the more old-fashioned torture-interrogation method of punches to the gut.

Punched from faceless, unnamed soldiers like those who had just worked over a good portion of Klaus Odine's intestines. The hellhounds that had been called down on him from the self-appointed General of the Crusade.

"Vat zeee.. zees is an outrahge!" the scientist hacked, thankfully without blood. Sir Almasy had not liked it when, thirty-four hours ago, the professor had dared to mar the leader's pure white mantle with a flack of cross-sword's red. That was when they had broken his right leg. Had he gone to sleep since then? " I demand zat you releaze me immediahtley! I have zee... how do you say... connections! Zees vill not be.."

Had he said that before too? Couldn't remember. Couldn't remember much of anything, but the sporadic bursts of formulae that flahsed with mayfly accuracy through his mind - doomed to die without pen to put to paper.

And the face - the only lit one - was starting to get blurry.

"Shut up, old man," did it speak?

"Vat do you vant?"

If he asked it nicely, would it stop? Could he give it something? Where the ropes making his wrists bleed into their unforgiving fibre, or was that his imagination? Had his circulation been cut off there long ago?

"I've got an offer you can't refuse."

Well yes. Odine already knew that. Doctors do.

"I'm liszening. Anysing.. anysing you vant...."

Odine, no matter how much he would endure to retain his space project funding, was not that stupid. Not at all.

Oh, how nice. The scientist's head was lolling back. And the nice solders poured some water down his gullet. It had grown dry and raspy with all the screaming.

How nice. He wanted to die. He wanted to fly away from here. He needed _sleep_.

"You're going to make me my very own remote-controlled sorceress to play with!"

Oh - he had Odine's old bangle too, did he? That must be the only way he'd know. yes certainly! More reaserch. Good. So good. And blackness comes to nurse away the pain.

Fly away, now. Fly away.   


***

Happy happy day. It was a happy day.

Sir Seifer Almasy was in a good mood. A very good mood. A good mood of such fine vintage and rare lineage that the very birds in the trees below his floating fortress broke out into song. No napalm for them today!

"Excellent news, Mistress!" the Knight verily floated into his Sorceress' room. Or.. stalked at least. Prowled? No.... no stalked would do. Seifer _stalked_ through the halls with a lupin grace slowed down by force of habit to more loping, catlike speeds.

_His_ Sorceress - so no, he did not fucking need to knock, thankyouverymuch. Besides which, despite their inactivity during the last few months.. well.. it wasn't anything he hadn't seen before.

"There.. there's been word on Selphie and Zell?" Rinoa eyeshadowed herself into prettiness, staring into the large mirror of a pine vanity he'd had brought in from Timber. Yes, Timber. What did you tink it was named after, a goddamn animal? "Oh that's great! I hope they're okay. Do you like this dress?"

Her Holy Majesty did not bother to look back, so Seifer could keep grinning with that delicious little edge of fangs.

"Better than a dress, my liege," the blonde kept a good three feet back. At one time or another, he might have whispered it with just the right amout of breath and body heat into her ear. But that was when Heartilly was a spoiled kid on the town for an 'adventurous rebellion against horrible cruel Daddy'. Out for a fling with one of the soldier's that'd come to town on leave, and been Garden enough to be labelled the Wrong Crowd. Not a Sorceress.

"What do you have in mind, you bad boy you," the sorceress giggled, turning and poking him in the nose with her index finger for... no apparent reason. Sorceresses did not giggle. He'd have to make a note of speaking to her about that. Though admittedly, she giggled alot less than when they were dating. Probably because that asshole Leonhart had been inconsiderate enough not to die by Seifer's hand. Pansy-ass fairyboy wasn't even useful in his grave.

"We've tested a new... weapon. A magical drive. It shall simulate the Sorceress effect, so we won't have to dispose of your friend."

"Oh Seifer.. I knew you'd see that killing Quistis is wrong! You just spent too much time in those horrible repressive Gardens. She just needs help, the poor thing."

"Don't worry. I have the best doctor I can think of on it. He knows what he's doing - he's even a Professor."   


***

Let's say, hypothetically, that somebody was kind of sort of spying.

You know, hypothetically. It was Zell Dincht's Word of the Day. See, 'cause Ma had gotten him this calender and sutff, so he had to totally read the thing for vocabulary or else Ma'd be pissed, and now the one he'd taken from that officer a few weeks ago reminded him of her. Ma said that if he sounded smarter he'd get more chicks. And she wanted grandchildren. So.. like.. yeah. That's always good, hey? And Grandpa was so damn smart with stuff and all, so Zell should at least make an effort right? Pass on the ol' Dinch blood and traditions and.. umm.. stuff.

So, in a hella hypothetical way, let's say someone was spying.

'Kay, so they're spying, right? And they're right arounda corner kinda wedged between a bulkhead and some useless flashing console thing on the bridge of Galbadia Garden. Their muscles are reeeeealy cramped from being there for like hours and hours and hours, but they so did not trust that Fujin bitch. Even after all this time, 'cause evil lies in wait and lurks and all that, and damned if they're going to let their only living thread get chewed up in the path of Fujin's bitch of a rebound.

Right.

Now, while they're spying, Psycho Fujin gets a call on the really big screen at the front with the crappy resolution. So she takes it, adn it turns out to be that femmy guy... whatesisname... Kiros. And he talks alot about who Squall's dad is, though, even though Squall's never told Dincht this. But he'll all sensitive and shit.

So she's talking to the guy - complete sentences and everything - and then who comes on screen but Laguna Loire in the flesh, baby! Damn... to be _Laguna Loire_. All the guns in Esthar, and half the chicks too. Not to mention a celebrity.. that guy lived it up. Well.. y'know. Not in the strictly disciplined way Zell did, but well enough. For a non martial-arts guy.

Then he's all 'I wanna hire you' and she's all 'what about Squall?' and he's all 'he'll come around.'

Come around!? The fighter didn't damn well think so. Shiiiiiiiit.. she was selling them out. Or.. at least selling them without Squall. So she was just selling him an' Zell out, since Squall and Zell were friends and all as much as anybody was _ever_ friends with Squall. Which was enough, Zell guessed. Enough for a guy like him.

And she goes 'we need the parts. There aren't any Gardens to haijack' and he seems sympathetic. Then you see 'em talking more, and you're soooo pissed but what can you do? Damn your back hurts. The metal is cooooold. And then she all says she'll support then and stuff if we have to and Squall agrees, and Loire starts asking kinda wierd questions for a president who's not gay to ask about some guy. Y'know.. personalish questions. That she kinda half-answers when she can.

What!?!

So Fujin and girlydude were were working together all along. . Not fair. _So_ not fair. I mean, yeah, when you looked back it seemed like they'd tried to talk to Squall, but still! No wonder their stupid lame Posse broke apart. Damn traitors.

"I know. I love my son, Commander Asher. I want us all to live through this."

"Survival indeed."

"I can't thank you enough, either. I mean.. I gotta make sure... "

Bloody hell

What if they found out something really important? What if they found out that Squall's dad was.. checking up on him and trying to hire them and shit even though Fujin kept saying no?

Well, if someone did that they wouldn't be able to tell enyone anything, would they? Because they were spying.

And you know what? That fucking sucked.

But it was alright. 'Cause Squall saw anyways, even if Zell didn't know it. He'd come to find his friend and stuff, and then he'd heard it all. Since really, spying's not all that hard at all when your flying base is so shadowy.   
  


***   


This was ridiculous.

It had right from the start been cursed with a certain amber tinge of the absurd. A vibrant, bacterial shade that struck at the unsuspecting from behind the Garden's edged grey pillars and benches benched of chic industrial grating. They were young. They were powerful. They were free. And they had no idea what the hell they were doing parting the ocean at two hundred miles an hour. No real grudge to drive them on, besides a hate of the world so ephemeral as to be naught but vapor without the added steel of mutual companionship. There was no longer a scourge of survival to harry their heels, now that they could just take what they wanted. And they wanted. They wanted so many many things. It was no small miracle that their rebellion against cause unspoken hadn't degenerated into some kind of tequila party weeks ago.

Some of them were soldiers, true enough. But some of them were just teenagers. And some of them weren't sure which of the two made for a better option, with no chance of holding all the cards in either seat.

Lucky they were, to employ so strong a charcoal as to filter out irresponsible citron glee through a haze of coal-grey smoke (or, in this case, alabaster fog and a deceptively generic caucasian mist). That Taoists might have called it yin and yang in a moment of unabashed cliché as the two were male and female. But they were too the same for that. And since when was grey black and white, anyways? Grey gets far less than the respect it deserves.

Back, then, to ridiculousness.

It is a well-known fact that color blindness is far more common in the male of the species than in women. Perhaps, then, it was inevitable that half of the morally-ambiguous stereotype shade would mistake the aforementioned amber glow for something other. Refracting it through forest irises until that innocently unruly sunshine wavelength was transformed into the toreador's red.

In short, Squall Leonhart was sick and tired of it. Because this was ridiculous. These... _children_ were ridiculous. Their day to day, temporary, aimless survival in the face of global domination was ridiculous. The salt air was ridiculous - where on the open sea was there to hide? Zell Dincht and Raijin Kasim, so secure in their little jokes and their poor-man's happiness were ridiculous. His mission, nonexistent, was ridiculous. Laguna Loire wanted him to be a hero, which was also ridiculous, since Laguna _was_ a hero and Laguna admittedly hated himself.

What was he thinking? Ridiculous.

Fujin Asher was ridiculous too. Ridiculous. Ridiculously mooning over some arrogant, delusional, violent loser too wrapped up in his own little world to accommodate anyone else's. And able to be soldierlike beside it, with a professionalism that demanded his respect despite her occasional.. 'moods' being utterly absurd. Laguna Loire was ridiculous, for being a man that professed to love him. _Love_ him. Despite the fact that for all intents and purposes the Hero of Esthar had thrown Squall out to be raised by the wolves. Ridiculous, that they would form some kind of unholy conspiracy against his sanity.

Ridiculous!

What had he done to them, to make them do this!? Hadn't he done his job properly? Hadn't he gone where his father had sent him? He was what he was supposed to be.. why the hell did they care?

_I don't get it._

He too must be ridiculous.

_Why am I here?_

He didn't need anyone. Anyone. Leave him alone - that was the refrain of a melody that had played for seventeen long years.

_Why am I here? Why?_

This was not the job. This was not the score. This was not the law and this was not his calling. He would not be bonded to this.. gaggle of opaquely non-sensical youths. He wasn't getting paid. He was being stupid.

Leonhart. Weak. Who would have thought it?

_Why am I...._

He didn't need this pressure. This stress wasn't his - no not his. When did the lion agree to take responsibility for a pride? That wasn't in the contract. There _was_ no contract. Another reason he was being ridiculous.

_I don't get it. I just don't get it. Some day.. will this all make sense?_

That was, perhaps, why he'd bothered picking up their little conversation from outside Martine's gutted office.

And it also might be why he was sitting in the Garden's spartan garage. Brooding, and looking at the door. For once actually thinking about the twist in his gut and a mysterious hangnail pain in his heart. No rain to watch drain past the window, washing his pain away with implied tears in their smooth, dark ride. No phasing out to the rhythm of the skies.

In another time, on another world, in a different place with less soldiers and more uniforms, Squall Leonhart might have felt the hand of passion. Love could have cradled him - a sunny smile. A warm embrace. But there is no love in an empty room. And there are no embraces from a substance that is confirmed to exist only in theory, a force that has yet to be broken by scientific dogma into becoming something tangible. In this world... love did not have the privilege of being that which finally broke Squall Leonhart. He came to the brink all on his own, in an empty gasoline-stained parking garage.

Not the love of angels wings or spaceships or castles in the sky. Not that kind of love that would have counted.

***

Up Next: The shit well and truly hits the fan when Seifer gets a new toy to play with from jolly Santa Odine. In act two, chapter two - the ballad of sleeping beauty.


	2. the ballad of sleeping beauty

bmirror6 **Broken Mirror**   
act II - shards   
II -the ballad of sleeping beauty   
  


She's lost in coma where it's beautiful   
Intoxicated by the deep sleep   
Deep sleep   
Do you wonder what it's like?   
Living in a permanent imagination   
Sleeping to escape reality, but you like it like that. 

Guilty by design   
She's nothing more than fiction. 

- Fiction (Dreams in Digital), _Orgy_   
  


*** 

Seifer Almasy hated alot of things. Like Fujin Asher, and feta cheese, and Hyneforsaken sinners. 

Hate, as they say, is a powerful emotion. Blahblahblah.. opposite of love... blahblahblahblah.... corrupter of souls ... blahblahblah... route of all strife.... blahlblahblah.. Evil. _They_ say alot of things. And really; they're not at all ones that should talk, that viewing public. That gaggle of holier-than-thou heretics with sparks in their eyes for all things of good and tolerance. Oh, yes, they're quick enough to denounce hate. And probably they should, if the emotion in question is that vague, ephemeral rejection of an everyday object that most of the things Seifer Almasy hated received. 

Alas, however, they make a cruel miscalculation. They assume that hate destroys. Well that's not so, now is it? They assume that hate destroys instead of sustains, and that in providing nourishment for the soul it can only warp and bend and twist. That's what they say in the fields, in the houses, at the shops, in the offices and schools and colleges. But what they don't say is that they're never really hated themselves, oh not _really. _ Though they'd probably like to think that in some deep dark corner of their mind they have, and that they (of all people) have righteously exorcised a part of the soul they've never bothered exploring. Doesn't that make for a nice tale? It certainly provides a moral majority. 

If Seifer Almasy hated alot of things, it wasn't because he truly wished them the most creative and fashionable tortures of the bowels of hell. Nor was it that he did not hate, and was but a poor, misunderstood, lost soul (lost souls are usually ignoring the road signs of their own accord - and seldom are they found through anything other than a walloping with Common Sense). 

Screw that, as the Knight of Fire might have said in one of his most lucid of moments. Fuck it. Fuck them. Fuck the world, and leave it the happier for having spend time in the conjugal bed. 

He might have hated alot of things, that blonde avenger of the new improved generation. But some things - some things he truly loathed. Abandonment, injustice, scorn, insecurity... the types of things worth hating. 

Being a proactive man, he had to make it right. Good evening, fairytale prince. Why aren't you charming? Your smile makes the blood evaporate, and your white horse illuminates those wretched stables that stink of blood, sweat, and shit. 

Destroying, eradicating, _forcing_ the good in the world to stay by his side and everyone else's by proxy. That was his Crusade. A genocide of imaginary proportions that had taken shape in the corners of his mind like some dream castle on a down-grey cloud. Those sylphlike qualities that had stuck in his craw for so long that they had been absorbed into the general anatomy of the beast. 

Most of all, perhaps, Seifer hated that his hate had not consumed him. That he had yet to revolutionize the world, that he had perhaps _never_ changed a thing with yet another war for students to write dry essays on in fifty year's time. That the world would continue pointlessly buttfucking him out of anything resembling what is _supposed_ to be a decent existence like it had for all of his remembered life. 

A diamond in the shit. 

And diamonds are _forever_. Shit is not. Shall we make a diamond from that shit? A Sorceress could. 

And that was why Seifer Almasy hated the Estharian Border. 

"Fuck.. pansy-ass cowards. That damn border stands for everything that's wrong in this world, d'you hear me? Frigging relic cowards holed up in their..." 

See? From the man himself the words flowed in a torrent of highly-combustible kerosene. The Balamb Garden deck crew had learned to ignore this, and they had learned to ignore a good many things. Namely fear, the urge to go to the bathroom on duty hours, any liking they might have one had for now-rationed lunch meat, Sorceress Rinoa's strange predilection for wandering out at all hours to look at the sea from the observation deck, and anything even remotely involving the world 'Trabia'. Nobody liked to think about Trabia. And nobody liked to disturb Seifer Almasy when he was off on one of his inspirationally paranoid rantings. 

Seifer Almasy hated. Knew that dark siren like a lover. The mistress that supported him through all his conquests, the one safe bed he could fall back into. Perhaps he was one of the only people in the world to truly feel its contours; the conflict with that one bright spot of blood that just _won't_ rub out. 

Clouds are temporary. Not forever. How offensive. 

"Labs! Progress report!" 

Esthar. Esthar. Esthar. Destroyer. Imprisoner of Sorceresses. Defier of the natural order. The nation that had drawn his mind like a moth for years with it's first failed, prototypical Crusade to save the world from it's damnation to mediocrity. The notion that the world could be something better than what it was, that is was stupid to settle for second best... that had been them. And he did not so much resent being sacrificed to that war, one might assume, as he minded being sacrificed to it's_ failure_ - a specter that could not be allowed to walk the halls of this grey matter gain under any circumstances. 

"Professor Odine reports that he has the implant prepared, but he still needs to do more tests to ensure that..." 

Esthar. That yammering boy had it splayed up on screen for Seifer's perusal. All shiny and bright in the technicolor light; surrounded by a pearl force shield powered by Hyne knew what. The Knight had no need for shields. Defense and isolation - standing by while the world drowned - that was for pansies. For honorless heretic _cowards_. Like Esthar. Esthar. Esthar. Esthar. The opalescent sheen that had dripped along his psyche for the past few weeks like something out of a manual for water torture. Esthar refused to fight, Esthar refused to fall, and Esthar was _not_ playing this game properly. 

Barrier. Barrier. Barrier. He's been staring at the fucking barrier for three_ fucking_ months because fucking Laguna Loire couldn't fight like a fucking man instead of the girlfaced pansy fairy _fuck_ he was. 

"He's already had two goddamn weeks. Tell the doctor to hurry the fuck up!" 

"Sir! Yes, sir!" 

Pace. 

Ignoring the lividity of his scar, the young man's fingers went strait through his clipped blonder hair. Just once. Before he turned his hands to better use, and his mind to other things.   


*** 

It was for the best, all in all, that Quistis Trepe possessed the singular sorcerous ability to be many places at once. 

Physically, the Sorceress of the Day was suspended in a hydraulic lift of a bed in the former secret chamber of one Gardenmaster NORG. NORG was dead - his remains jettisoned quite neatly from Waste Disposal Chute #3425-ad5 to feed the lampreys of the Trabian Sea. And as he was to have no epitaph, no one had bothered to ask what the initials stood for. But Quistis.. Quistis was alive, and in the living bowels of the best of the best military creations of the current century. The refuge for hermit evolved past his prime - so opulent and yet so spartan - had made for more than enough room to accommodate equally luxurious medical equipment. 

The soldiers that had taken Balamb for the honorable Cross Knight... they only _wished_ they had it this good. 

Wrapped in her artificial coma, the former professor appeared to hold secrets. Thoughts unbidden under lashes that writhed with the tides and eddies of an REM-signified dreamscape. And in a way... well, in a way she might have. Kept some secrets, that is. Just not ones that really mattered to anyone in this room but her. 

The others were in the possession of a good twelve medical techs, and the genius known as Klaus Odine. 

The wan blue glow that blanketed the merely adequate sheets warming her rapidly thinning body only pretended to leave something to the imagination beyond her fevered dreams. Wires, tubes, and flashing lights - all formed a sort of growth around the sleeping beauty. One that no prince could have awoken her from without at least minor knowledge of medical technology. The translucent plastic vines slipping nectar into unsuspecting veins. Fluids of all sorts nourishing and mapping the meandering of the blood vessels; then pooling in her cerebrum for one v_ery_ interesting cat scan. 

The others, hooked to the myriad monitors, showed the doll-like body's secrets as if they'd come written on the back of the box. A light for pulse. A line for brain activity. A beep for oxygen level. A console for fifteen different ways to map the peculiarities of of hear endorphins. X-rays, suspended over the lights that sterilized her frail form, mapped every inch of strangely ordinary bone structure. And the spawn of polished steel gurneys could probe where they might with impunity thanks to an unhealthy amount of sedative. 

There were needles in her wrists. 

Where the veins had collapsed over almost four months of intravenous sustenance and research, they'd pricked their way up to her elbow joints. Klaus Odine had only needed two weeks with her - which was good, because the other researchers were running out of room. 

And as the pumps and the monitors and the activity of the room beat in time with her carefully observed heartbeat, a man approached her. Alas, poor sleeping beauty. A keeper of secrets surely cannot be the Handsome Prince. 

Slowly, carefully, a skinny old man with a strange accent and bags under his eyes removed his third bone marrow sample from her fibula. A rise. A bob of the head. A swig of coffee and a glance at the schematic on his clipboard, and he was toying with a small, blinking implant made from a cannibalized power-dampening bangle. 

The incisions would have to start this afternoon, or there'd be hell to pay.   


*** 

When the clock struck twelve, her hands were buried in rose petals. 

And they were coming. 

Her skirts were a heavy crushed velvet - the part in her hair ragged and hot under the cover of a stifling veil. They were coming. Coming for her. The corpses of one vibrant flowers could not muffle the fall of their footsteps on that bitter garden path. The dead leaves were crushed in their wake like a thousand biting shards. 

_This way, men! The poison drew her out!_

She did not understand them. Their words sounded foreign - so alien to ears that had wearied of sound long ago. It had been years since she'd bothered with conversation, or music which did not play from the branches or the depths of her mind. 

Why would they kill her roses? 

The rest she could understand, face hidden in a cascade of hair that had silvered with age. As if the curtain could hide her, somehow, from their wrath. 

And maybe it could 

_Burn the witch!_

Or maybe it couldn't. 

_Call the exorcist! Call the Bishop!_

There was no wind - the wind was partly her domain, as were the tendrils of life networking all around her. A slow, pulsing green that had settled into her veins decades ago, when she had become the Hermit of the Wood. The Hag. The Earth Mother. The Gardener. 

She had many names. 

_Witch! Witch! Come out, Hag!_

Her garden... why did they have to kill her garden? The Garden was not unnatural. Though sap might flow with a spark of magic, or the blooms might turn their heads to the sun for one day longer, she was no great power. Not the witch among the hedges - hidden in the bramble and the bush. The garden did not deserve to die because she created it.. not her poor lilies, her hyacinths, her orchids from the east. None of it. Why.... 

_Burn!_

But she was unnatural. And so must this place be to them; one unbearable speck of greenery suspended in the blight of winter. 

_Witch! Bring the torches!_

This was not their world. Not their garden. This was her construct, her creation, her _rules_. 

And oh, she was so weary... arthritis, was it? Not something she could knit back together. A start to run lanced pain through her knees like firecrackers. The air was so cold. So cold. Her roses... the must not kill her... 

_Witch! Surrender yourself! Your unnatural power must be cleansed by Divine Law!_

Raising withered hands, the tattered old woman raid eyes clouded with cataracts to the winter sun. Cold air was coming in. her poor babies. In the darkness, she could _see_ them wilt. That mustn't be allowed. Was it time she slept, then? She could feel the earth below her. So solid, unlike her frail bubbled bones. It was turning for the first time in a century. 

Was it time she invoked the ancient law? 

Indeed. 

FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC. 

_No! you can't...._

_Someone help me!!!!!_

_The trees, oh God..._

_No! They burn! They burn! Don't touch them! They..._

_The petals.... make them stop falling, please, I beg you, make them stop..._

Dead. And sleeping now together. 

The Sorceress Quistis Trepe was there with the Sorceress Imogen DesJardins. Somewhere other than a metal slab in a metal room. 

Remember. 

Live. 

Do you know the words yet? 

Then sing, girl. Sing.   


*** 

Hell. 

Selphie Timlett wasn't totally sure what hell was, but this had to be pretty damn close. Like how margarine is just enough like butter that you can eat it, but not so much like butter that you'll get all fat and stuff. Except this was making her fat. So maybe it really was hell after all. 

Her first thought had been abortion, you understand. Abort. Withdraw. Blow that sucker out of the water. 

"Irvy..." 

But it wasn't that easy, was it? Things are never easy for you, Sephy Timlett. Not for you. So just keep breathin', and maybe a silver lining or two will filter into your lungs and... 

"Jus a sec..." 

On second thought, she was bloody hungry. And didn't feel much at all like being happy either. 

"Irvine, NOW!" 

This pregnancy thing - it totally had her moody. Totally. 

Kinda like stealing this jeep, right? You knew it was kinda wrong to be feeling what you were feeling, since babies are small and tiny and cute and stuff and aren't you supposed to be happy? Right. Of course she'd be happy without a jeep too, but with a jeep life got easier since you didn't have to walk and stuff. Except that didn't work either, since babies cry and whine and feed and take your life away. 

She'd known. Oh, yeah. She'd totally known. All those nights in the foster houses, with the colic taking nasty lil' vampire fangs to any semblance of sleep in that cold night (It wasn't night. Irvine was driving her away in the jeep. Some man from the military checkpoint was chasing after them - wheels of his motorcycle unnaturally fast on the cracked earth. The sun was too lazy. Her skin was so warm. Why wasn't she thinking about that? Keep your eyes on the road, Timlett. Blow 'em all to hell.) 

'Cept she'd still decided to steal the jeep - acting as cover while Irvy held up the nice men with the laser guns who had been 'mean to Matron'. Irvine was a nutcase. This she knew. But Irvine was a nutcase with highly specialized targeting rifle, armor-piercing bullets they'd ripped off some sniper guy out camping on leave (craaaazy soldier), and the eye of an eagle on speed. That had been a bit of a stroke of luck, actually - the sniper guy. In her state water was good. Very _very_ good. And so were rations. 

Speaking of which, where had all the pudding gone? Fingers reaming through the tarp-turned-sac they'd hastily shoved in the back felt nothing resembling a gloriously full tetra-pac or calcium-fortified chocolate yumminess. 

"Irvy!" the smaller fighter called over a racing wind. The air was always chasing something here - though given the barrenness of the place, she wasn't exactly sure what. It's own tail, maybe. "Where'd all the pudding go?" 

"Ummm.. Sephie? Guy shooting at us? I'm kind of driving here..." their ride suddenly lurched to the left, throwing the mage up against the edge of the thing. Gawd.. she should've worn a seatbelt. Dammit, usually her balance was better. 

"Right... right! Sorry. Jus' a sec, Irvy." 

Wished she coulda said it felt bad to kill them. Wished. But it didn't, not really. They lined up nicely against the blue horizon (oh, she prayed for clouds - cloud with silver lining... poor ol' Squall). Not that she really had to aim or anything, but this was for Trabia, you know. And despite the other Gardens thinking that they were pussies just because they were small, Trabia deserved the best. Poor Trabia. Gonna make you a funeral pyre, just you wait. 

Right hand cocked like a pistol, the girl perched in the back of a dilapidated military jeep driving forty miles per hour faster than the speed limit narrowed her eyes a little. The wind had taken a liking to the dust, and the trio of bikes that had congregated behind them were nothing more than motes in the distance now. Her other hand was white-knuckled from the wear of hanging on to the door. 

Three.. feel that glitter in your head. You know.. that glitter. Siren, your turn to hear. Don'tcha hear the calling, Siren? Of course you do. 

Two. Watch them. Track them. Closer.. closer... Galbadia. Prey. The blue is gathering around you now, but you don't' notice, do you? Lightning will make pretty glass in the sand. A snap decision. And even if it's not pretty, the dunes will blow over it anyways. 

One. The heavens rain down. And you can't hear them screaming, can you? Just like they couldn't hear Trabia. All's fair, and all that. Blow 'em up up up! Blow 'em up to heaven! Blow 'em all to hell. 

"Irvy.. we're driving to that forest outside Winhill. We need food. Loooots of food. Ya like hunting, don'tcha?" 

"If you're hungry, Sephie," the cowboy shrugged, unperturbed.   


"Cool! You _rock_, Irvy." 

Settling into the back of the tan colored vehicle, the girl fought her nausea by watching the scenery refuse to change around her. Funny, that. Heh. it had been easy killing them. Always was. No sense getting depressed, right? 

Leave 'em all behind. 

So she should see a doctor. There was no doubt about that. See a doc and he'd cut her up and _then_ it would be revengetime. Irvy wouldn't bring it up - the 'what to do about IT' thing - but Irvy was a total nutjob, like she'd said. There was something seriously out of wack with him. maybe they'd screwed with his head in the drill prison - those electroshock things could do some nasty thing to tissue. She should know. Electrical theory had been part of her magic training, right? 

So why did she feel like crying? It had been so simple, so.... 

That's what she'd said - that it was simple. 'Cause it was logical, and believe it or not Selphie Timlett knew just a _bit _when stuff made sense. And she'd crowed with with the rest of the chorus when the older girls at Trabia got knocked up. Somebody got caught in the training garden with Teacher? Or someone spent a bit too much time in the dorm room with that guy in Guardian Force Management with the strange eyebrows? Get rid of it. Dead weight. What do you care about killing? Be free. Don't ruin your life. It's just a cut. An needle and a scalpel. It'll barely hurt at all. And then everything will be okay, don'tcha see? That's what birth control is for. You're a soldier, and that bastard won't be around... so do what's best for _all_ of you. It's not alive yet. It's just a thing. You're doing what you have to do.. it's right, you know. It's right. You can't do it at your age - no offense, since you're nice and all, but still. 

Don't kill that bright future now with some crying ball and chain. Don't be foolish, girl. You were foolish one time, and look where it got ya. 

Oh Hyne. 

It made so much sense. Just as much sense as grinding those Galbadian bones into the dust. 

So why wasn't it easy?   


*** 

Stepping through walls was easy if you knew how, so she did. And no one minded since she was little. And Uncle Makanesi said that little girls are sugar and spice and everything nice. 'Cept she was _magic_ too, so she was extra special, right? 

Right! 

Her name was Qu.. no, her name was Nkosazana. Why would her name be Quistis? She was Uncle's Nkossie. And she was running through walls. 

Pop pop pop. Like bubbles! But they went back together so that was good. Catch her, catch her, if you can! The Amazing Nkossie, Miracle Child! 

The walls were big and stone, but that didn't matter. She was the Faerie Princess Nkossie - out on a mission to kill evil! She was Nkossie the Great - lady of the magical lakes! Or.. so maybe she wasn't. But she _was_ Magical Dancer Nkossie, the most gracefullest girl in all the land and all the princes loved her! And she was too. 'Cause they'd had her dance on the ceiling last time, and the princes had_ all_ clapped. Which was really fun, 'cause when she danced right side up nobody thought she looked cool at all. 

Uncle said he loved her. Uncle was very very nice - he'd made the lady who looked sleepy give her the powers to walk through walls. To be Nkossie! Not stupid Nkosazana, that had no walls to run through and had had to haul lot of water aaaaall the time which was really mean and unfair and hard too, since she was small for her age. Stupid Nkosazana had been nothing but a water girl who danced with the maid sometimes, but Nkossie was a STAR! 

"Nkossie.. I thought I told you it was time for rehearsal? The act starts soon." 

"I said I was coming, Uncle! 

"I wish you wouldn't hang halfway through the roof like that. And I've_ told _you about knocking. Now come, child, we're performing for Lord Akataas tomorrow. You have to practice the fire trick with the musicians." 

"Yes uncle." 

Nkossie ( NOT Nkosazana) slid slowly through the final wall between her and her Uncle in the big granite theater they practiced in when they weren't wandering around with all the ponies touring. 

FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC 

She liked to sing that rhyme sometimes, even if the other kids didn't know it. Maybe her Mama had sung it too her when she was little before the cholera took Mama and Papa and Ikemefune away. It made Nkossie feel all scrunchy inside. 

FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC 

Pop! 

D'you wanna play now, Quisty? 

Come on. Anyone can learn it! It's fun! Go on... 

Remember. 

Live. 

Sing! 

*** 

While pacing, Seifer Almasy did not see her blink. This was probably a good thing. He, unlike the lab tech, would not have upped the anesthetic. 

"Is it done, yet?" 

"Almozst, Zir Almaszy," face to face with the man himself, Klaus Odine looked smaller than he did when looming over the twig of Quistis Trepe. Insignificant in the shadow cast by a utility lamp. "Almozst. I've modified zee deszine of zee equiptment I szold Krahmer. I should have..." 

"Should is not a word I like, Professor Odine. It grates on my ears. Do you understand me?" 

"Yes szir. It eez ready. If you'd juszt allow me to test.." 

"How fucking stupid do you think I am?" Oh, he loved this. Justice. The gunblade at this scrawny little waste of space's throat. Like the rat hadn't' designed something of the like for that shemale Adel years ago. Adel? A Sorceress? Hah! If Adel was a Sorceress, Seifer Almasy would east his goddamn trenchcoat. Sorceresses did _not_ look like that. 

"Yes. That's right. I'm going to let you, some whiny-assed pansy of a scientist, sic a Sorceress with several cerebral implants to control her powers on me. Riiiiiiiiight. I'm sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone who is NOT RULING HALF THE WORLD." 

And then he was dead. Ho hum. This was getting so old. And the elderly had thin skin - so cuttable. 

A grin infected the young knight's face. Now this was the Sorceress he needed. This, until a suitable replacement was found, would do quite well. Would do forever, if need be. There was no way that this one could up and run. No way in hell. 

"Oh, you're going _down_." 

Why, he almost felt giddy. Buh-bye, Esthar! It's been a great game, but Seifer Almasy now officially owns your sorry ass and your girly shiny barrier wall. 

"With my Ultimate Weapon....." 

Quistis Trepe? No, that wasn't right. Quistis Trepe was a whiny co-dependant neurotic. This was not Quistis fucking Trepe.   


***   


Fithos. 

Lusec. 

Wecos. 

Vinosec. 

~FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC~ 

The truth of the words is that they make no sense. A revelation lying not only in their reality, but in the understanding that they were never meant to be subjugated to fickle definition. Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec. No language, no tune - just rhythm. No proper pronunciation or chains of style and conjugation. No message to be sent nor moral to the story. 

They can mean whatever you want them to mean. That was what they were trying to tell her. That was what she needed to learn, before the lights came on and her limbs resumed the wear of everyday pounding in Balamb's youth-worn halls. But you can't communicate a message when the message is that there is no sum encapsulation. 

Hyne. 

Fithos. Lusec. Wecos. Vinosec. Repeat. 

~FITHOS~ 

They talked to her in dreams. Were they dreams? She wasn't sure. She wasn't sure of much of anything anymore, except for Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec. She could not see the world beyond the eyelids that she assumed where there. Somewhere. Somewhere that was not the void where the heir apparent floated all her days. 

She did not know what the pain was, when it cast cobwebs down her back. She did not know that. 

She did not feel the grim metallic fangs sink through her neck and into the hypothalamus, amassing their electrochemical armies to bind the cerebral cortex. 

~LUSEC~ 

She knew that they where trying to tell her something, melded in their Great Gospel. A cacophony of triumphant voices dacing from this void to the dawn of time and the Living God herself. She knew she was one of them. And that there was no melody. No counterpoint. No harmony. No beginning and no end. No purpose but Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec that time had compressed to teach her. 

Which was..... 

~WECOS~ 

Was.... 

~VINOSEC~ 

She was not a self. She was nowhere. She was everywhere. She was on the smoke-stained pulpit of a mobile altar - sacrificed instead of revered on her pedestal. There was a bullet in her heart. And she was in a ballgown, dancing, while her knight presented her with the head of a dragon. There was blood on her hands. She had healed a small child. There was blood on her hands - seeping in to the miniscule in light cocoa skin, tinting her fingerprints as her chipped nails trailed down a stone wall. She had fired a cannon from the aft of the ship. She was ordering them to fire a cannon from the walls of the palace, dressed in a long wrap and multitudes of peacock feathers. She was tending to the children in a hospice - angel white. She was walking in the rain. She was burning in the fire and the ashes. Bound. She was an old woman making poultices to heal, and a young child making poultices to kill. One of them had used a pestle, the other pludding in a blender. She was them and they were her and time meant nothing was compressed so she could learn her place in the chain in the life in the moment and FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC. 

Make the rules. Define the meaning. Shape the world. Grasp the power. Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec. Reality is yours. 

~fithos~ 

Wh-what? Where where they going? 

She didn't understand. FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC. Why where they leaving her alone? 

No. No, don't stop speaking. She wanted to be anywhere but... 

~lusec~ 

Where had all that screaming come from? 

Down, down, down... are you anything, if you can feel nothing? 

Down, down, down.. if you can't hear, are they still singing? 

~wecos~ 

Where was pain? Where was it? Someone prick her, someone tear into her skin... 

Nature abhors a vacuum. 

Whywhywhywhywhywhywhy........ 

~vino...ssssssssssssss~ 

Where had they gone? 

Where where the voices? Sound, feeling, though, rage, hate, anger, love, cold, technicolor. 

Where? 

Where where the words of ultimate power? Where was the defining factor - no plot, no point, no principle but theirs? 

FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC. 

~ssssssssssss~ 

Would they not sing with her? 

She understood now. She did. She did. Fithos. Lusec. Wecos. Vinosec. Your own words. Your own rules. She knew. She... was this supposed to.. no ... 

Numb. 

Was she then sleeping? 

Numb. There was no screaming here. She still was chained from singing by the blood. The blood. She had blood? Oh Hyne, where had they... 

Come back. Come back. You're supposed to... someone help her... 

She was waking, not sleeping. Wasn't she? 

_Squall? Grieve with me._

~ssssssssssssssssss~ 

*** 

"With my Ultimate Weapon. Ultimecia."   
  
  


-------- 

The shit has officially hit the fan. To be continued in part III - world wide war.   


A note: I am pro-choice. Selphie is Selphie, not me, and Selphie is having a dillema about something she's probably never really thought all that much about before. I respect whatever descision a woman makes when she gets pregnant - wether she gets rid of the child or keeps it, I'm sure she has good reasons. All I am trying to portray is that it must be a very hard descision to make; one which is different in every circumstance. 


End file.
